Lady Hotspur

by Tessa Gratton

  Or perhaps because he was beloved by the Ashling ghost, and accepted her mark with serenity.

  As the younger child of Corius of the March and Cealla Errigal, both of whom died when he was but five years old, Connley was a lonely boy. He was thin and gangly, with bright tan skin of mixed Third Kingdom ancestry and deep brown curls, hazel eyes more green than brown, round and perpetually wide over his broad cheeks. He rarely smiled, though his expression usually fell toward a wondering, curious state rather than anything too serious or frowning. And always beneath those attentive eyes a line of black ashes was drawn, down like tears toward his jaw. The mark of the Ashling Lady.

  Rowan knew Conn had heard her yearning song before he even knew what it meant, and that he never had minded giving his love to the Ashling ghost. “She is sad, and I comfort her somewhat,” Conn said to Rowan once, when the prince was sixteen and Connley thirteen. It had not satisfied Rowan, but as long as Innis Lear said no word to him that he should cast out the Ashling or bind her away from Connley, Rowan supposed the condition would hold.

  The two young men met often at the Summer Seat, or at the rootwell in the White Forest, and always when the royal family tended upon Queen’s Keep at the southwestern tip of the island, where swords of Errigal steel were forged. Because both young men spoke the language of trees fluently, they were able to hold some conversations in secret. Connley would drift away to the wilderness with a handful of holy bones, and Rowan would follow in order to explain to Conn the political ramifications of their casting. Or Rowan would take Connley by the wrist up to the roof of the Keep and show him the pattern of the stars and how the island winds pushed clouds across this star or that constellation in order to aid Rowan in the wording of a new prophecy. They learned to bend tree branches together for a temporary shelter and how to send messages through a flock of birds, the way of soothing a ragged storm and why some flowers bloomed in Connley’s footsteps and others latched on to Rowan’s hair with their sharp thorns to ask for his blood. Connley could silently coax a tree to shed rotten bark; Rowan chattered with the crows and learned jokes from them.

  The Ashling Lady joined them sometimes, soothing to Connley and like a creeping worm up Rowan’s spine. The younger man would relax and smile at a secret she told him; the older would listen to the anxiety with which the trees murmured back and forth, aware of the chill in the air. Innis Lear disapproved of the ghost, that was certain, but never did a thing about her. Perhaps it could not (a thought which did not occur to Rowan for several more years).

  And for her part, the Ashling ignored Rowan until the day he kissed Connley.

  They’d been repairing a section of stone wall near the village of Hartfare in the White Forest, and they had gotten it into their heads that they might find a perfectly shaped stone of pink granite if they raced to the sparflower meadow. For once, the idea had not come from roots or wind or stars, merely their own desire for exploration. Eighteen then, Rowan was finding it more and more rare to have an afternoon of liberty. Because of this exceptional license, he felt ready for something that day. What he did not know—until they achieved the meadow with its scatter of tiny white sparflowers, where floating dandelion seeds gave the warm summer air a quality of otherworldliness. Neither he nor Connley wore much because of the heat, only trousers, and in Rowan’s case a loose sleeveless vest in dark blue that opened over his chest; in Connley’s case merely a leather thong from which hung two tawny ghost owl primary feathers.

  Connley crouched in the meadow with his hands steepled against the earth and his dark curls a soft halo around his face, and Rowan realized what he was ready for.

  He had considered it occasionally—sex, that is—and usually with Connley as his partner in exploration. That day the Poison Prince was so taken with the image of slender, dark Connley communing with the island flowers that he strode across the meadow and put his hand into Conn’s thick hair. He gripped it, hard, and slowly pulled a surprised Connley to his feet. Conn’s lips parted as he met Rowan’s passionate gaze.

  Rowan used the leverage of his greater strength and height to draw Connley against him, then kissed him openly, eagerly, firmly.

  Startled, it took the younger wizard a moment to respond; then he dug his fingers into Rowan’s ribs and smiled into the kiss.

  The Ashling ghost screamed.

  Because of her liminal existence, Rowan had never heard her voice fully before—the ghost was a whisper he could not quite parse, a breeze twisting counter to the gusting urgency of the island wind. But with his lips against Connley’s and their naked chests pressed together, her voice could be heard clearly:

  Mine mine mine!

  And then came a shriek more furious than an autumn gale, and it pierced the meadow, tearing away at the summer warmth.

  Connley jerked back, but Rowan curled his fingers into a fist, still gripping the younger man’s hair.

  The prince replied in the language of trees, He is not yours, Ashling bitch.

  “Rowan,” Connley chided, his expression pained.

  Rowan let go and Connley turned away, hands out placatingly. Rowan still tasted the flavor of Connley’s tongue.

  My Connley. Mine, the Ashling Lady hissed. Cold, ghostly fingers slashed across Rowan’s face. He stomped his foot upon the meadow grass and shoved his hand against the air, palm flat. The gesture pulled at the wind and sliced through her wails, because he was the Poison Prince of Innis Lear.

  Connley, the ghost said again.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” Connley said mournfully. In the language of trees he said, Lady, do not fear him, or that you might lose me. I am yours. He brought one finger to the streak of ashes on his right cheek, as if to remind her he wore her tears.

  That afternoon Rowan had conceded, leaving Connley in the meadow with his haunt, but as he stalked back to Hartfare the prince vowed to discover a way to neutralize her before she murdered his friend.

  But in the heart of the night, as Rowan Lear slept on a low straw bed inside the duke of Hartfare’s summer cottage, he suddenly could not breathe.

  The air in his throat froze, thickening with frost and bile, and Rowan woke, clawing at his neck. He flung himself out of bed, wide eyed, mouth moving open and closed: he could not whisper even in the language of trees. The ghost wrapped her cold spirit around him, pricking his skin and hardening his bones. Rowan charged outside, throwing himself through doorways and into the garden. He fell to his knees, and with sheer will controlled his body’s struggle to breathe. Head aching, he crawled along the furrowed earth, shouldering through rows of leeks and pumpkin vines, until he found the well at the edge of the yard.

  Rowan used dirt-covered fingers to dig into his mouth, pulling at the frozen threads of magic. He tore them out, gagging, yet still could not breathe. Hissing laughter burned in his ears, skittering over his cheeks and his bare back like tiny whips.

  But the Ashling ghost did not know of the bargain Rowan Lear had made with the rootwaters when he was only a child: at his distress, the well answered. Cold water seeped up through the stones, up through the earth itself, soaking the ground all around him and turning it to mud.

  As his vision blackened to blotchy shadows so different from the nighttime darkness, Rowan used the rootwater mud to slap hash-marks in the language of trees across his chest, collar, and throat. Open, he wrote, and breath of wind and then his own name, which was as much a name of magic as hers. Rowan. Ash. Both part of Innis Lear.

  And then he could breathe again. Then he was free.

  Rowan Lear rolled onto his back in the holy mud and promised himself and the stars twinkling overhead, beyond the tall trees of the White Forest, that he would discover the true name of this monstrous ghost.

  As with most things, her vulnerability was hidden within her love: her true name was a mystery Rowan solved by first contemplating the name of the one she loved best. Connley Errigal.

  Three weeks later, Rowan summoned the Ashling ghost by her true name, told her he knew
what she was, and if she ever went against him, or against the interests of Innis Lear, he would destroy her.

  IN THE FIVE years since that night, the Poison Prince and the ghost had maintained their uneasy truce.

  Today, it was a different tension that drew Rowan out of the Summer Seat and to the half circle of standing stones known as Lear’s Teeth. Recently, across Innis Lear, every star priest, every person who heard the voice of the wind or read the prophecies of the stars, saw the same stars in every message. Though the prophecies and blessings ranged in topic—what children would be born before the Longest Night, or when it next would rain, and how long it would take the earl of Rosrua’s son to reach the Third Kingdom—ever since that rebel queen had risen in Aremoria and Rowan had cast her a prophecy, tucked within every new prophecy were a trio of constellations that rarely appeared together.

  The Dragon of the North.

  The Lion of War.

  The Wolf Star.

  The wind itself had whispered into Rowan’s ear of this strange communion, and the warning had echoed from the mouth of his young cousin Era Star-Seer, a prodigy in the science of augury. Even his mother, Ryrie Lear, had seen visions of these three creatures in the woven threads of her loom. Queen Solas said to Rowan, “When it is time for us to know, we will,” and dismissed the worry. That was Solas Lear’s way: she knew the temper of Innis Lear and refused to act upon dire prophecy without clarity or a goal of her own—to do otherwise unbalanced the world. At her nephew’s telling frown, she only added, “Until we do know, we will watch, and listen.”

  Nothing in her words forbade Rowan following his anxiety, and so he came out to Lear’s Teeth on the night of the autumnal equinox to draw a massive star chart.

  Set at the pinnacle of a cliff overlooking the glassy gray ocean, Lear’s Teeth were seven granite stones, rough with pale moon lichen, uneven and sharp at the top so they cut up against the sunset. The stones smiled in a crescent, half a circle ready to mark the edges of Rowan’s chart.

  He was, as a grown man, tall, lean, and well-muscled from labor and warcraft, with white skin that gilded in the sun but never freckled, and long white-blond hair. His eyes were coppery brown with flecks of gray, the set of his jaw elegant and square. Celestial tattoos and the hash-mark scars of wizardry decorated his chest, belly, and arms, and Rowan always dotted a daily constellation against his stomach or cheek or forehead with white clay.

  The twilight sun poured vivid orange arrows against the western sea and opened the curtains for stars, and Rowan dropped the leather bag from his shoulder, removed his boots and long jacket, his shirt and the small braids from his hair. He pulled from a pocket three crushed hemlock petals and quickly ate them, eyes lifting to the sky and lips murmuring a song for the wind. He knelt, body tense, and studied his internal world as it slowed and drained away, as the poison began its work. Just before he reached the point of paralysis, Rowan took up a small pouch of rootwater filled this afternoon from the well in the rose courtyard, and he drank a sip.

  With rootwater on his tongue and hemlock in his blood, Rowan whispered in the language of trees, Your will be done.

  He lived.

  And when he felt his energy blaze again, Rowan fetched the leather bag that leaned against the base of the central standing stone. Using Lear’s Teeth as half his circle, he dug iron spikes into the earth to mark the edges of a full starfield, then looped long undyed threads of wool around the whole of it. He scattered salt and the ashes of summer leaves in four directions and then began the painstaking process of drawing constellations with chalk dust and white clay. His movements were a dance as he avoided smearing the stars: he marked the Dragon of the North, the Lion of War, the Wolf Star—though this time of year the Dragon barely appeared until late, late in the night, and the Wolf Star was a spring star. He marked Saint Terestria, his birth star, the Salmon and Summer Throne, and twenty-one more constellations.

  With thin wool lace and strings of butterfly wings that shed orange and blue scales upon his fingers, Rowan carefully put clouds across his earthen sky, set the direction of the wind and the angle of those final golden rays of daylight. With blood cut from just below his left collarbone, he marked the thin crescent moon that chased the setting sun.

  This work showed Rowan basic prophecies, questions to probe further, and a scatter of answers.

  But Rowan wanted more. From his bag he took out a bone-carved box and dropped nine holy bones into the palm of his hand. Three of black horn, three of gleaming seashell, and three of polished oakheart. The Poison Prince planted his feet at the southern edge of the starfield and closed his eyes. This is a prophecy for Rowan Lear, your vessel, he said in the language of trees.

  The island wind replied, Poison Prince! Rowan of Worms!

  He threw the holy bones in an arc and listened as the wind trilled loudly enough that he did not hear the smaller bones as they hit the earth. The air smelled of salt and thin smoke, and tendrils of his hair caught in the wind, stroking his shoulders and neck.

  Turning, Rowan immediately saw the seashell bones had landed each upon the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf.

  The remaining six bones spelled out a prophecy he’d waited more than ten years to see:

  Begin.

  HERE IS HOW an earth saint is made:

  The king is old, and dying. He dozes upon a plain chair on the balcony outside his study, too tired even to replay moments of his life or to analyze his choices and mistakes and triumphs as he was wont to do in stronger years. His country is not at war and the harvest proceeds well across the land: that is enough today. Occasionally, though, he thinks he hears his name called out, the nickname nobody uses anymore, because he is too much venerated by those who remain.

  As the violet tongue of twilight licks against the roses carved into the balcony rail, something steps from nothing, there at the first edge of shadows.

  The something is a man, or looks like a man. Small and rough, he bears his shoulders like a soldier, but wears a green silk jacket cut out of fashion, from an era as old as this king. His hair tangles in little braids and knots around bone-and-horn charms; his mouth relaxes in a natural frown; his eyes are muddy, dappled forest ponds. Flecks of silver haunt his black pupils. Perhaps he is an earth saint, but he is entirely alive: their agent, then, their hand in the world of wind and stars.

  For a long while he studies the old king, waiting as shadows lengthen across the balcony to kiss the king’s slippered toes. Age bends deep lines around the king’s closed eyes, has painted his beard white. What remains of his hair is hidden beneath a plain wool cap that is nothing like a crown.

  The stranger shifts forward along with the evening shadows and the old king snaps open his eyes. Their fierce blue catches on to the stranger, and he says, “It’s you.”

  Not a stranger after all.

  “It’s me,” the shadow man whispers, kneeling beside his old king.

  “Did she come with you?” The king peers beyond, searching.

  “She remains on Innis Lear, always.”

  The king’s eyes drift closed again, and he grips the arms of his chair. “Yes. I know. I should have been there when she died.”

  The other has no comfort to offer.

  “Her sister did it,” the king whispers, an undercurrent of anger charging his helplessness. “Called her name again and again until she couldn’t resist. I knew. I ought to have been there, how could I not have been there?”

  But that is an impossibility: her sisters died long before she did. The old king’s memories play against one another, muddled and changeable. The shadow man touches his king’s knee, the most he can give.

  At the touch, the king looks up again. “You are so young.”

  “Nearly as old as you,” the shadow man answers sourly.

  That makes the king smile. He was so fond of this fox in his youth. It’s good of Aremoria to send a familiar spirit to him now.

  The shadow man asks, “Are you ready?”

 
“I’m tired, yes.”

  “Then come.”

  The king’s jagged pulse slows as he lets go, not eager, but accepting. The sun is gone and the wind smells tenderly of roses from the gardens below.

  At exactly the moment the old king dies, the shadow man puts his hand over the king’s chest and pushes. They fall back into shadows and vanish.

  THERE IS LIGHT inside shadows: silver-gray and even, without cracks or variation.

  THE TWO FALL out again but not into wind or stars; into the rootworld where earth saints dance, velvety and sharp toothed, beautiful and monstrous. They reach out to welcome this chosen king, who is already so much a part of them by intention and blood and spirit. Dead and alive, both and neither, drifting in between.

  Only the court of earth saints can make a new earth saint, filling his mouth with shadows and turning his bones to misty moonlight; the old king loses his name, and his memories are their memories now, and the memories of Aremoria. The king is the land, they say, but not all kings—only the ones the earth saints choose.

  ONCE ON INNIS Lear an earth saint was almost born: drawn alive into the rootworld, enfolded by ash trees and willpower and desperation, she transformed but could not be reborn—not on Innis Lear, where there are no saints to sing her bones into moonlight or pour shadows down her throat. The rootwaters cannot do it alone. She is half of one world, half of another, and clings to what she lost: love, a name, her almost-children.

  She is a haunting, an unsettled specter of Innis Lear’s past. She cries out in the wailing wind, yearning, confused, and she disturbs even the strong magic of Innis Lear.

  DEEP IN THE rootworld of Aremoria, the earth saints put a crown upon the old king’s head, made of roots and worms and ancient pearls, and when they stand in their circle, every crown is a jewel in the larger crown: thus is the earth saints’ court a system of intentions, whispers, hope, and hungry shadows. They are weaker than they used to be, always weakening since their magic was cleaved away by a furious wizard a thousand years ago. This is the end of their strength, to make this last new saint.